Daniel C. Lynch (Professor of International Relations at University of Southern California)

Is China’s Rise Now Stalling?

09:10 – 09:40

Li Wei (Professor of School of International Studies at Renmin University of China)

The End of Engagement Strategy and Its Adverse Consequences

09:40 – 10:10

Question and Answer Session

10:10 – 10:30

Coffee Break

10:30 – 11:00

Zhang Huiming (Professor of School of Economics at Fudan University)

Deepening Reform of State-Owned Enterprises: from “Classification” to “Stratification”

11:00 – 11:30

Wang Ping（Deputy President and Board Member of China Review News Agency）

The 40th Anniversary of Reform and Opening-up: Hong Kong’s Anxiety and Future

11:30 – 12:00

Question and Answer Session

12:00 – 13:30

Lunch

Saturday afternoon, October 27

14:00 – 16:30

Panel Discussion: China’s Social Development and Foreign Relations
Moderator: Michael Wu (Director of Shang Dao Institute for Social Research)

16:30 – 16:40

Group Photo Session

18:00 –

Dinner

SHANG DAO CHINA DEVELOPMENT FORUM

Seminar on the 40th Anniversary of the Reform and Opening-up

After more than three decades of rapid
development, China has come to a crucial historic turning point in the second
decade of the 21st century. In 2010, China’s GDP surpassed Japan for the first
time, becoming the second largest economy after the United States; by 2017,
China’s GDP was about 2.65 times of Japan. According to estimates by the World
Bank and other agencies, China’s aggregated economy will surpass the United
States in 2030 or so and will rank first in the world. Undoubtedly, China’s
rapid development has attracted the attention of Western developed countries.
However, is China today still seen as a developing country that learns from the
West? Or is China considered a competitor or challenger with a different system
and a different civilization? And can the so-called Thucydides Trap between a
rising China and the United States the superpower be avoided?

After more than three decades of rapid development,
China also saw new problems by the end of the first decade of this century.
China’s Gini coefficient reached an unprecedented level; the income gap between
urban and rural areas, among different professions, and different regions, was
very large; official corruption, environmental pollution, and the public’s
dissatisfaction were increasingly serious. Since 2014, China's economic growth
has apparently begun to slow down, entering the "new normal" period
in the real sense. Therefore, in the second decade of the 21st century, China
has in fact entered a period of historical adjustment. China not only needs to
continue to reform the problems and drawbacks left over from the first 30 years
after the establishment of the Chinese Communist Party, but it also has to
reform the new problems and new defects occurring in the past 30 years of
reform and opening up. That is to say, China has to adjust policies
domestically and reconstruct the relationship with the world today.

Since 2012, the Chinese government has
consciously adjusted the direction of development in the past 30 years.
Internationally, China has put forward the "Belt and Road Initiative"
and the concept of "community of human destiny". It repeatedly
stresses that the relationship between China and the West is win-win
cooperation, hoping to promote globalization further. Domestically, China has
begun to tackle issues such as official corruption, environmental pollution,
and the disparity between the rich and the poor. Policy makers have taken more
consideration into those from the bottom of society, and the country’s
socialist feature has become increasingly clear. From the perspective of
macro-historical development, it is an objective historical requirement for
China to adjust and transform over the past few years. Otherwise, developments
might not be sustainable. In this sense, it is not accidental that China has
made major adjustments and changes since 2012, while still deeply rooted in
social issues. It is a logical continuation of the further deepening of reform
and opening up initiated by Deng Xiaoping. It is to solve both old and
new problems facing China. At this juncture, a further examination and
exploration of the whole process is deemed necessary.

On the 40th anniversary of China’s reform
and opening up, Shang Dao Institute for Social Research sincerely invites
scholars at home and abroad to discuss the following topics:

·What kind of
practices in China’s 40 years of reform and opening up is worthy of carrying
forward in the future? In which aspects do we need to deepen reform?

·What kind of
new problems have emerged in the past 40 years that require further reform and
adjustment?

·As a newly
emerging great power, can China still maintain an interconnected relationship
with the West, especially with the United States?

·Can a new
type of smooth interaction mechanism be established between China and Western
countries?

Participants are encouraged to exchange
views on the successful experiences and problems of China’s reform and opening
up in the past 40 years, economic development and governance, relationships
between China and Western developed countries and other developing
countries.